ONONDAGA COUNTY – A single big inning made the difference for the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool baseball teams in the Section III Class AAA quarterfinals, sending one side forward – and the other out of the tournament.
It was the no. 3 seed Northstars who survived, making a timely late comeback to beat no. 6 seed Rome Free Academy 4-3 Tuesday at the Gillette Road Complex, while the no. 5 seed Warriors ousted in a 5-2 decision to no. 4 seed Christian Brothers Academy at Tom Dotterer Field.
The points system that determined the sectional bracket proved quite favorable to C-NS, though it didn’t seem that way for quite a while against an RFA side against which it split two other one-run games during the regular season.
They were 0-0 until the top of the fourth, when the Black Knights scored twice off Kaden Kalfass, both runs driven in by Peter Summa. Then RFA added a run in the sixth to create a 3-0 margin, all of this despite Kalfass amassing 14 strikeouts.
For most of the game, the Northstars found it tough to solve Black Knights ace Mike Catalano, but all of that changed in the bottom of the sixth.
Roaring to life, C-NS caught up and then passed the Black Knights, chasing Catalano and getting big hits off reliever Michael Flint. Battista Wood and Kenton Cochran were credited with RBIs as Andrew Davis, Carter King, Joe Lukasiewicz and Ben Watkins scored those runs. Jaden Zimmer added a pair of hits.
Wood also stood out in relief, getting the final three outs in the top of the seventh to help the Northstars advance to a semifinal against no. 2 seed Utica Proctor, who ousted Syracuse City in a 5-4, 12-inning epic.
As for Liverpool, it would try to replicate its magical 2023 run to the sectional Class AA title, only to get turned back by a CBA side it had lost to in the regular-season finale just three days earlier.
All went well in the early going, the Warriors poking across a run in the top of the second and maintaining that 1-0 lead for a while thanks to strong pitching from Nate Benjamin.
Then, in the bottom of the fifth, it all changed.
CBA’s bats got to both Benjamin and reliever Tyler Vivacqua, with three doubles from Jimmy Kennedy, Tim Scholl and Cooper Marko followed by a two-run home run from Riley Clemons-Butenko.
Despite getting a run in the seventh, Liverpool could not recover as Brothers reliever Tom Menar went the final two innings after Ryan Petrie started, the pair giving up six hits between them.
Benjamin had two of those hits as he and Anderson Roden scored the runs. Anthony Testone, Chris Baker and Bailey O’Connor joined Roden in the hit column, but the Warriors’ season finished with a 12-9 record.
